Wx Service: Mid-State Winter May Get Worse Before Getting Better

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- The National Weather Service says our mid-state winter is already in record setting territory and may get worse before it gets better.

Meteorologist Sam Herron in the Nashville Weather Service office says that, to date, the average daily temperatures is 4.6 degrees below normal. He says this month may well turn out to be one of the top-ten coldest Januaries on record.

According to Herron, a stubborn north-westerly jet stream continues to dump arctic air across the Eastern United States and deep into the American South.

“Most winters we’ll see this pattern for a while and then it will back off, but it seems that this winter the pattern has persisted. That started around Thanksgiving and has continued here into the heart of winter.”

To make matters worse, Herron says the Southern Jet Stream is also starting to act up. He says if that pattern persists, Middle Tennessee could get hit with some of the snow and ice that coated much of the deep south yesterday.

“With that storm we kind of dodged a bullet, but we may not be so lucky in the next couple of weeks.”

Mid-State temperatures will moderate a bit this weekend. We should be back in the 50s by Saturday, but Herron says the warm up won’t last long.